Morbius, The Living Vampire
Morbius the Living Vampire, a scientist named Dr. Michael Morbius PhD,Marvel Zombies 4 #1 MD,Legion of Monsters vol. 2 #3 is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Roy Thomas and originally designed by penciler Gil Kane, the character first appeared as an antagonist in The Amazing Spider-Man #101 (Oct. 1971). Morbius went on to become a heroic, tragically flawed protagonist in his own series and other titles. Morbius is a man suffering from vampiric abilities and physical traits resulting from a biochemical experiment, as opposed to supernatural means. Publication history Morbius debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #101 (cover-dated Oct. 1971) following the February 1971 updating of the comic-book industry's self-censorship board, the Comics Code Authority, that lifted a ban on vampires and certain other supernatural characters. It was the first issue of Marvel Comics' flagship Spider-Man series written by someone other than character co-creator and editor-in-chief Stan Lee. Lee, busy writing a screenplay for an unproduced science fiction movie, bequeathed the series to his right-hand editor, Roy Thomas. "We were talking about doing Dracula, but Stan wanted a costumed villain. Other than that, he didn't specify what we should do," Thomas said in 2009, adding that part of the character conception came from an unspecified science-fiction film of Thomas' youth, depicting a man turned into a vampire by radiation rather than magic. Thomas said the name "Morbius" was not deliberately taken from the antagonist Doctor Morbius in the movie Forbidden Planet. Thomas and penciler co-creator Gil Kane created the character as a man who is given vampiric abilities and traits via scientific rather than supernatural means. Kane based the character's look on that of actor Jack Palance.Kane in A tragic and sympathetic antagonist in his initial two-issue arc, having acquired his vampiric addiction while researching a cure for his own rare, fatal blood disease, Morbius collided again with Spider-Man and others in Marvel Team-Up #3-4 (July & Sept. 1972). Morbius went on to star in Vampire Tales, a black-and-white horror-comics magazine published by Marvel's sister company, Curtis Magazines, appearing in all but two of the mature-audience title's 11 issues (Aug. 1973 - June 1975).Morbius did not appear in #6 or #9; reprinted Morbius stories appeared in Vampire Tales Annual #1 (Summer 1975) All but the first and last of these were written by Don McGregor, with penciling by Rich Buckler and by Tom Sutton, primarily. and Frank Giacoia.]] After his first two Vampire Tales stories, Morbius concurrently became the star of his own feature in Marvel's bimonthly Adventure into Fear anthology series, beginning with issue #20 (Feb. 1974) and continuing through #31 (Dec. 1975), the final issue of that title. These were written, successively, by Mike Friedrich, Steve Gerber (who had written the first Morbius solo story, in Vampire Tales), Doug Moench, and Bill Mantlo, working with a wide variety of pencilers. During this period, Morbius again appeared as an antagonist in the Spider-Man one-shot, Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1, published in June 1974. Following sporadic guest appearances throughout the next 16 years, Morbius was revived in the 1992 series Morbius the Living Vampire, launched as part of the "Rise of the Midnight Sons" crossover story arc in Marvel supernatural/horror comics. It ran 32 issues (Sept. 1992 - April 1995). These later stories add to his repertoire of powers the ability to hypnotize others, and describe his ability to fly as psionic in nature. A one-shot special tentatively titled Spider-Man/Venom/Morbius by Morbius writer Len Kaminski was scheduled for 1993, but never saw print due to the writer's departure from the series out of disgust with Morbius penciler Ron Wagner. Wagner felt that Kaminski's stories were too character-driven, and Kaminski claims that Wagner complained about the stories to the editorial staff and left "snide margin notes in which he made his personal opinion of my plots clear" (Kaminski would see these notes because he and Wagner worked under the Marvel method), but ignored Kaminski's attempts to get in touch with him so that they could discuss how the comic should be done. Series colorist Gregory Wright stepped in as writer with issue #9 and delivered the bloodshed-heavy stories Wagner wanted. Despite this, Wagner lasted just six issues longer than Kaminski on the series. Wright stayed with Morbius through issue #23. Alongside the core series Morbius the Living Vampire, a reprint series, Morbius Revisited, was published from 1992 to 1993, and featured material originally published in Adventure into Fear #27-31. Solo stories starring Morbius also appeared in Marvel Comics Presents #144 (Late Dec. 1993), several issues of the Midnight Sons Unlimited series (1993–1995), the one-shot Strange Tales: Dark Corners #1 (May 1998), Amazing Fantasy, vol. 2, #17 (March 2006), and the one-shot Legion of Monsters: Morbius (Sept. 2007) On October 17, 2012, Marvel announced that Morbius would appear in a new comic by writer Joe Keatinge and artist Richard Elson, beginning January 2013. Fictional character biography Enemies and allies Powers and abilities References External links * *[http://www.comics-db.com/Marvel_Comics/C/Creatures_on_the_Loose/index.html Morbius] at the Big Comic Book DataBase * *[http://www.maelmill-insi.de/UHBMCC/SHOW.HTM?SerNr=1031 Morbius, the Living Vampire] at the Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators * *[http://www.maelmill-insi.de/UHBMCC/SHOW.HTM?SerNr=1032 Morbius Revisited] at the Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators * Morbius at SpiderFan.org * Brief bio at Insania 1998 * Category:1992 comics debuts Category:Characters created by Gil Kane Category:Characters created by Roy Thomas Category:Comics characters introduced in 1971 Category:Fictional chemists Category:Fictional genetically engineered characters Category:Fictional Greek people Category:Fictional scientists Category:Marvel Comics characters who can move at superhuman speeds Category:Marvel Comics characters with superhuman strength Category:Marvel Comics mutates Category:Marvel Comics titles Category:Marvel Comics vampires Category:Spider-Man characters